1. Field
The described embodiments relate to techniques for typesetting and rendering documents in computer systems. More specifically, the described embodiments relate to a platform-independent technique for typesetting and rendering documents, which ensures that the dividing of the document into lines and pages is the same across different computer systems and computing platforms.
2. Related Art
The recent proliferation of web browsers and computer networks has made it easy to display the same document on different computing platforms. However, inconsistencies in the way fonts are rendered across different computing platforms can cause the same document to be rendered differently for users of different computing platforms. More specifically, for a given font, the way in which metrics for various font features are interpreted, such as character height, width, leading and white space, can differ between computing platforms. These differences in interpretation can cause individual characters in a document to be rendered at different locations, which can ultimately cause the words in a document to be positioned differently between lines and pages on different computing platforms.
This inconsistent rendering can be a problem for people who are collaborating on a document. For example, if one collaborator points out an error on a specific line of a specific page, another collaborator viewing the same document on a different computing platform may have to first locate the error on a different line of a different page.
Hence, what is needed is a technique for providing consistent rendering for documents across different computer systems and computing platforms.